Answers, in no particular order:
1. I ride touring and sport touring framed bikes to support my size: 6'3" / south of 250 when I'm trim, north (sigh) of 300 when I'm not. Right now I'm in the middle.

2. So the wheels need to be stout.

3. I expected the wheels to show up somewhat true, and properly tensioned. At my size, undertensioned wheels can be a real problem.

4. The bikes:
--My 'A' everyday bike is a Schwinn /82 Super Sport S/P with custom built wheels--Mavic A719 rims, double butted spokes, Deore LX hubs spaced to 130.
--'B' bike is an '84 Centurion Pro Tour. This rides like a Bentley. I had hoped that with new wheels it would get ridden more often; maybe even make a few trips.
--'C' bike is an '83 Miyata Six Ten. It's current wheels are somewhat creaking 27x1-1/4's originally from my better half's '85 Panasonic 1000. This bike has fenders, and is the travel/rain bike.

5. Work and work travel have picked up, and it's a struggle to maintain the riding schedule. Bike maintenance time has become severely limited.

6. You would think the dish stick might be superfluous in tandem to a truing stand. Not so. It's an instant fool proof low-tech reality check.

7. So far, I've learned to use the TS-2 truing stand and tensionometer pretty well. But I haven't advanced to wheelbuilding. If I had, I never would have bought machine built wheels. I'll true and dish all these wheels maybe over xmas, when everything slows for a week or so and the weather sucks. I had wanted to ride them right now, but I guess that's not happening.

Both wheel purchases were targeted at getting the 'B' and 'C' bikes back on to the road.